5 Answers
5

Technically no, it is not the same thing. Sweetened condensed milk has a very high sugar content, something like 40%, while just condensed milk has no sugar at all.

But this still doesn't tell us what the recipe author meant. The availability of different types of condensed and evaporated milks seem to differ a lot in different parts of the world. This being a fudge recipe, I can imagine that it is an American one, because fudge is not as common in other places. If unsweetened condensed milk is unusual in the States, I can also imagine that the recipe author was not aware of the difference and just shortened it to "condensed milk" without knowing that it has a difference in meaning.

Your best strategy is finding a different recipe, which uses a different dairy product. Not only will be there no doubt what the author meant, it will also be much easier for you to make it as it is, instead of having to mess around with substitutes. Candy recipes are generally sensitive when it comes to small differences in ingredients.

If you hang to your recipe very much, you can try looking online for non-sweetened condensed milk, it is possible that you will find products your brick and mortar stores don't carry.

If the recipe originates in the US (like you suggest, that's quite likely if the recipe is for fudge) and was written within the last 30-40 years, "condensed milk" almost certainly refers to "sweetened condensed milk". I wasn't able to find even a single example to the contrary in 22 pages of Amazon listings. I did find many examples of products listed only as "condensed milk" which are in fact sweetened.
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JolenealaskaAug 8 '14 at 9:39

In my experience, "condensed" milk refers to the sweetened product, and "evaporated" milk refers to the unsweetened product. People will often say "sweetened condensed" for clarity, but this is not strictly necessary: if your recipe calls for condensed milk, use the syrupy stuff.

However, if this is an older recipe, all bets are off: older casual usage had "condensed" for both meanings. (Hence using the "sweetened condensed" phrasing, even though it's a bit of a tautology.)

Thanks Marti ... I made white maraschino fudge for the first time and it was the only fudge batch of 8 this season that did not turn out, thought maybe there was just condensed milk and sweetened condensed milk as to why it never hardened....well NOW I will blame it on the cherries (not drained enough) will try again but will drain cherries for a couple weeks first LOL Thanks again for your help!
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Jennie BJan 1 '14 at 11:18

I've found when I run across the phrase "condensed milk" vs. the more specific "sweetened condensed milk," the recipe has its origins in the UK, such as in this recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Banoffee-Pie-Classic. First, look for clues in the recipe: it's not likely 1/2 cup of brown sugar would create a sufficiently sweet toffee layer, although I'm sure that could be argued by people with a less sweet tooth than mine. Next, look up similar recipes. I looked up other banoffee pie recipes and each US based site referenced sweetened condensed milk. Finally, this UK site for the Carnation brand product seems to verify it is indeed what we (in the US) call sweetened condensed milk. Check this out:
http://www.carnation.co.uk/recipes/8/Classic-Banoffee-Pie.

-1 (sorry) In all my years (many) of cooking, I have never seen an unsweetened milk product labeled as "condensed milk". Unsweetened condensed milk is called "evaporated milk", at least in the US. Referring to sweetened condensed milk just as "condensed" is not unusual. "Sweetened" is assumed.
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JolenealaskaAug 6 '14 at 10:54

Just to add to Marti's answer: If the recipe was written in the US within the past 30-40 (maybe more) years, "condensed" almost certainly means sweetened condensed. Sweetened is just assumed if the milk is described as "condensed". At least in the US, unsweetened condensed milk is never called "condensed", it is called "evaporated".

To boost my confidence in this answer before I posted it, I searched Amazon for "Condensed Milk". In 22 pages of results, I was not able to find a SINGLE product described as "condensed milk" that was unsweetened. I did however find several that used "condensed milk" without the word sweetened in the name of the product page, but without fail, these ALL turned out to be sweetened.

If the recipe is old or if its origins are outside of the US, I can't be absolutely positive what the author intended, but I have never seen "unsweetened condensed milk".